Background

Population-based studies have shown a slightly decreased life expectancy in patients with Crohn's disease (CD). The primary aim of the present study was to evaluate mortality and causes of death twenty years after the diagnosis in a well-defined population-based cohort of CD patients in Norway.

Methods

The IBSEN (Inflammatory Bowel group of South-Eastern Norway) study has prospectively followed all patients diagnosed with CD in the period between January 1st 1990 and December 31st 1993 in four geographically well-defined areas.

All patients were age- and sex-matched with twenty-five persons from the same county selected at random from the general population. Data on death and causes of deaths were collected from the Norwegian Causes of Death Register. All causes and cause specific mortality (GI cancer, cancer and heart disease) were modelled with Cox regression model stratified by matched sets. Results are expressed as Hazard Ratios (HR) with 95% Confidence Intervals (CI).

Results

The 237 CD patients in the cohort were age- and sex-matched with 5876 controls. There was no significant difference between CD patients and controls in overall mortality (HR = 1.35, 95% CI 0.94–1.94; p = 0.10). Furthermore there were no marked differences in deaths from gastrointestinal cancer, other cancers or cardiovascular diseases in the CD group compared to the controls. In the CD group 13.9% had died compared to 12.7% in the control group (p = 0.578).

Cause of death

Cases

Controls

Number of deaths

% of deaths

Number of deaths

% of deaths

Gastrointestinal cancer

3

9

60

8

Other cancer

7

21

102

14

Cardiovascular diseases

12

37

244

33

Other causes

11

33

340

45

Conclusion

In our population based inception cohort followed for 20 years there was no increased mortality or more deaths from cancer compared to the general population.